Microsoft recently announced in a live event called “Microsoft 365 Copilot: Wave 2“, it announced the roll-out of its second wave of updates to Copilot, its AI-powered assistant for Microsoft 365 apps, with promises of making workflow automation easier and more efficient. Some of the new improvements or features announced are summarized below.
Microsoft has introduced “Pages,” a new feature in Copilot’s BizChat that can be accessed through the “Work” tab when logged into a work or organization account. This feature allows users to pull insights generated by Copilot from their Microsoft 365 data, edit them, and share with teams through shareable, editable links, much like any other document. This update aligns with the rising trend of collaborative AI, seen in tools from companies like Salesforce.
Customers of Microsoft 365 Copilot can already access these Pages, and in the coming weeks, free Microsoft Copilot users with a Microsoft Entra account will also gain access. This continues Microsoft’s push toward integrating AI-driven collaboration into everyday workflows.
One of the standout benefits of Copilot is how it integrates into Microsoft 365 apps. With this update, Copilot in Excel is now available to all users, offering features like conditional formatting, data visualization, and calculations. Additionally, Copilot in Excel with Python is available in public preview, allowing users to interact with Python for advanced analysis, like forecasting and risk assessments, using only natural language—no coding required.
Other apps also receive significant updates. PowerPoint users now have access to the Narrative Builder, which helps quickly generate presentation outlines from simple input. In Teams, Copilot can summarize meetings by combining both chat content and meeting details, while Outlook’s updated Copilot tool can now flag and prioritize important emails and offer synopses. Microsoft plans to roll out these updates to all users by late 2024.
In Word, Microsoft has introduced a new feature that enables users to reference external materials like emails, PDFs, and presentations more seamlessly. A real-time collaboration feature, called the “on-canvas start experience,” also allows multiple users to edit sections of a document simultaneously. These Word updates are already available to most users.
Finally, OneDrive is receiving its own Copilot integration, offering features like file searching, summaries, and comparisons. This update will be available soon, as the feature continues to roll out. Additionally, Microsoft unveiled “Copilot Agents,” AI-powered assistants that can complete tasks with varying levels of user input. These agents can be created via the new agent builder in SharePoint or BizChat and can be invoked using the “@” symbol in 365 applications. Copilot Agents are now available, with public previews in SharePoint expected to begin in October.
While the new features sound exciting—like AI collaboration across teams and enhanced support within Word, Excel, and other tools—our community of valuation professionals isn’t exactly sold on its usefulness, especially for those of us dealing with complex financial models.
We conducted a quick survey among members of our ValuationPractice.com community, and the results were pretty clear: while there’s curiosity about Copilot, it’s not yet making a significant impact on our workflows. The biggest drawback seems to be with Excel Copilot, where the AI functions are limited to operating within structured tables. That’s fine for basic tasks, but when you’re dealing with complex valuation models that span multiple worksheets and intricate calculations, Excel Copilot simply doesn’t keep up. Many of our members shared that they rarely use Copilot in Excel because it just can’t handle the depth of analysis needed for business valuation work.
Some members did explore Copilot’s features in Word and Excel, but the general consensus was that it’s not a game-changer. Sure, it’s helpful for simple tasks like summarizing data or drafting outlines, but for the more complex, custom work that our profession demands, it falls short. As a result, many of us haven’t found enough value in Copilot to justify fully integrating it into our day-to-day processes.
That said, we’re hopeful that future updates will bring more to the table, particularly for valuation professionals who rely on Microsoft Suite tools every day. While Copilot isn’t quite there yet, we’ll keep an eye on its evolution and continue to look for improvements that could genuinely enhance productivity in our industry. For now, though, most of us are sticking to our trusted models without much help from AI.
